Betsy DeVos Asks the Education Establishment to ‘Rethink’ Schools | Education News | US News
DeVos Asks the Education Establishment to ‘Rethink’ Schools
The education secretary is on a multistate tour highlighting innovative approaches to learning.
By Lauren Camera, Education Reporter Sept. 12, 2017, at 3:21 p.m.
Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos slammed the established “education system” Tuesday, kicking off a “Rethink School” tour to highlight innovative ways educators are meeting the needs of students in K-12 and higher education.
“It’s time to rethink school,” DeVos said to students at the Woods Learning Center in Casper, Wyoming, Tuesday morning, where she began the weeklong tour.
She continued: “Most students are starting a new school year that is all too familiar – desks lined up in rows, their teacher standing in front of the room framed by a blackboard. They dive into a curriculum written for the average student. They follow the same schedule, the same routine – just waiting to be saved by the bell.”
“It’s a mundane malaise that dampens dreams, dims horizons and denies futures,” she said.
Betsy DeVos interview in Casper
“There are so many new and exciting ways state-based education leaders and advocates are truly rethinking education,” DeVos said in a statement. “It is our goal with this tour to highlight what’s working. We want to encourage local education leaders to continue to be creative, to empower parents with options and to expand student-centered education opportunities.”
Later on Tuesday, DeVos will head to St. Stephens Indian High School on the Wind River Reservation, a school that’s under the jurisdiction of the Bureau of Indian Education. The school’s website underscores its goal of preparing students with skills necessary for living in modern society while also maintaining the values of its American Indian culture and heritage.
“For decades, the United States has been stuck in the middle of the pack when compared to the rest of the world,” DeVos said to students at the Woods Learning Center. “Think for a moment what it would be like if at the next Olympics, Americans didn’t win one gold medal. Or if no American won any medal at all.”
Her speech Tuesday morning is just the latest example of DeVos pushing for increased educational choices for parents – the topic on which she’s spent the most political capital thus far.
The tour doesn’t specifically focus on private school choice, of which DeVos has been an ardent supporter and has used her bully pulpit to press Congress and state legislators to enact. But it will address those policies, likely in Indiana, where the state has operated a private school scholarship program for low-income families since 2011.